Guiding Research

The Science behind Mind-Body Education

Peace.Balance.Flow.Harmony.

These terms, and countless others, have been used to describe the various states of “being” that represent emotional, physical, intellectual, and social wellness. To date, there is a growing body of evidence that supports different kinds of therapies and approaches for training our brains, our bodies, and our minds to think differently, process differently, and behave differently, all in the name of finding peace and reducing suffering. Cognitive based therapies are widely used in counseling, psychotherapy, and life coaching. Brain “retraining” based on breakthroughs in the fields of neuroscience and neuroplasticity has changed the way institutions are treating survivors of traumatic brain injuries. Education research on “visible thinking strategies” is informing the methods teachers use to help students make meaningful connections between ideas they engage in the classroom and the wealth of personal and cultural ideas they offer to the class as human beings in their own right. Meditation programs such as Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Techniques (MBSR) are being used in hundreds of hospitals, clinics, and medical centers worldwide because of their documented effects on the well-being of people with chronic disorders and diseases.

But are these ideas just limited to the brain and brain functions?

Not if we let our concept of well-being be influenced by the literature that points to specific ways that the body and its movement vocabulary can strongly impact the way we think about our thinking and learning, and ultimately how we think about our well-being. Research on the effects of yoga, dance therapy, sensory-integration, and the emerging field of embodied cognition supports the concept that using the body for gathering and processing information about ourselves and the world around us is a critical element in retraining our thoughts, our brain. In studies of yoga practices to manage symptoms of post-traumatic stress, for example, the focus on bodily sensations produced through movement offers a safe way for PTSD survivors to “feel” their bodies anew and associate the body with pleasant sensations. And leading educational scholars have long emphasized the importance of the body when considering best practices for teaching judgment, discernment, and critical thought. In The arts and the creation of the mind (2002),Stanford Professor Eliot Eisner wrote that:

Judgment depends on feel, and feel depends on a kind of somatic knowledge . . .The body is engaged, the source of information is visceral, the sensibilities are employed to secure experience that makes it possible to render a judgment and to act upon it.(p. 201)

Below is a list of references and publications that have deeply influenced our programming at Humanity Moves. Our work in promoting well-being through mindful movement and the mind-body connection is multidisciplinary and multifaceted, which is reflected by the breadth of the fields that we look to for guidance and wisdom.

Evans-Chase, M. & Zhou, H. (2014). A systematic review of the juvenile justice intervention literature: What it can (and cannot) tell us about what works with delinquent youth. Crime & Delinquency, 60, 453-472.

Kambam, P., & Thompson, C. (2009). The development of decision-making capacities in children and adolescents: Psychological and neurological perspectives and their implications for juvenile defendants. Behavioral Science and the Law, 27, 173-190.

Luna, B., Padmanabhan, A., & O’Hearn, K. (2010). What has fMRI told us about the development of cognitive control through adolescence? Brain and Cognition, 72, 101-113.

Nelson, E., Leibenluft, E., McClure, E. & Pine, D. (2005). The social re-orientation of adolescence: A neuroscience perspective on the process and its relation to psychopathology. Psychological Medicine, 35, 163-174.

Nelson, T., & Nelson, J. (2010). Evidence-based and the culture of adolescence. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 41, 305-311.

What is Mindfulness?

Existing in the here and now, moment by moment without judgment.

There are many definitions for mindfulness. Diana Winston of UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center defines mindfulness as: “Paying attention to present moment experience with open curiosity and a willingness to be with what is.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Mindfulness Based Stress-Reduction (MBSR) program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center offers this definition: “Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, and without judgment.”

Mindfulness is a practice. It is a conscious, intentional slowing down of our thoughts, words, and actions to counter the harmful effects of habitual mindlessness. It is practice of observing our own sensations, feelings, thoughts and mental narratives as they arise, but without judgment. Mindfulness techniques can be found in ancient traditions and religions, such as Buddhist meditation, Christian devotional prayer, and Hatha yoga. Certain mindful meditation instruction is done seated or lying down, as to promote mental and physical stillness. Other mindfulness techniques, such as Kabat-Zinn’s MBSR, promote a complementary relationship between the mind and the body, without privileging one over the other. In other words, paying attention to our bodies and our movements opens up new possibilities for how we gain insight into the causes of suffering and how to free ourselves from those causes.

Stress Reduction and Well-Being

There is a growing body of evidence that suggest that mindfulness techniques employed in MBSR and mindful movement programs such as yoga are extremely effective in reducing symptoms of hyperarousal and emotional reactivity. When done without judgment or in a quest for physical “perfection”, these practices restore decision-making power lost from trauma-induced learned helplessness.

What is mindful movement?

Mindful movement is the practice of using your own body to gently become aware of your internal and external states. It is non-judgmental, and free of any rules that define what your body should or shouldn’t look like. Simply put, it is “mindfulness in motion.”

There are many forms of mindful movement. It can be done seated in a chair, on a yoga mat, or in a vigorous dance class. It can be as simple as going for a walk while noticing the sensations of your feet as they make contact with the ground. While there are various movement disciplines that incorporate elements of mindfulness, such as Tai Chi, Yoga, Gyrokinesis, Pilates, Feldenkrais, Ideokinesis, and many kinds of modern dance, nobody owns “mindful movement”, and as such it can be accessed and practiced freely by anyone seeking to deepen their awareness of their thoughts, sensations, physical and emotional states by fully inhabiting the body. Mindful movement is not about “turning off the brain”; rather, it embraces the totality of our thoughts, feelings, and sensations while we are in motion.

Thich Nhat Hanh demonstrates Ten Mindful Movements, which he designed as a way to break up long periods of sitting meditation.

From 2009 to 2010, Suzie Verdin organized various creative movement workshops for the children of Casa Hogar Elim, an orphanage in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.

Humanity Moves is registered with the IRS as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.